


the thing about soulmates

by nauticalwarrior



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Self-Esteem Issues, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 16:42:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nauticalwarrior/pseuds/nauticalwarrior
Summary: the thing about soulmates is that simmons hates them. he can't make himself like the idea, knowing full well that he doesn't have a soulmate.





	the thing about soulmates

**Author's Note:**

> here have this thing i wrote in between lab stuff

The thing about soulmates is that they aren’t a done deal. The universe didn’t  _ make _ someone for you, didn’t forge your souls with hands linked, didn’t fix up your minds to be two halves of one whole or anything mushy and stupid like that. The universe is a bitch who only cares about science, and natural selection isn’t magic. Soulmates aren’t really that at all, “soul” being something that likely doesn’t exist. It’s simpler than that.

Simmons has known this since his 6th grade science class, where the teacher, a young woman with brown hair that fell to her shoulders and curled at the edges, just the edges, explained to the class how natural selection favors humans who can reproduce. The class, a bit young for discussions of sex, snickered, of course. She patiently explained what a “soulmate” mark was; it was a display of the traits most compatible to the genetic portions of your personality. 

Later on, after Simmons graduated high school, they proved that environmental factors and hormonal changes could influence the marks too, but that’s not really the point. All a soulmate _ is _ is a person who’s entirely compatible with you. They aren’t the only one, and they don’t even necessarily exist, but given the size of the universe and the spread of humans, most people meet someone who at least mostly matching their mark (and vice versa) at an appropriate age. 

Of course, it doesn’t guarantee anything working out, and you can never really be sure if you’re someone’s soulmate for real or if you’re just deluding yourself into thinking you match their mark when really you don’t even know who  _ you _ are, so you mistakenly throw yourself at every pretty person. The marks indicate nothing, really. By the time Simmons enlists in the army, he’s long since accepted that his mark means nothing and he will likely never meet anyone who comes close to matching what it represents. 

At basic, when he’s wearing long sleeves in the mess hall, one of his squadmates leans over, his breath hot and smelling of eggs. It’s oh-five-hundred, cold and misty outside but hot and humid instead, filled with the odor of sweaty armor and cheap food. Simmons feels sick as it is. 

“Hey,” the guy asks. His name’s Johnson, or something like that. “Why’dya always cover up? Is your mark ugly or somethin’?”

You see, soulmate marks aren’t a taboo topic or anything. Most people wear theirs with pride, unless they’re inappropriate or gross looking or something happened that makes them want to avoid the topic. Like, for example, the fact that Simmons has made up his mind that it’s fake and doesn’t matter and nobody will ever love him anyways. That sort of sentiment, but less angsty because he isn’t fourteen anymore. 

“It’s just weird,” Simmons replies, which is technically true. It  _ is _ weird, from the psychedelic sunset over violet waves to the giant oreo in place of the sun. Some of the other things just don’t make sense, aren’t stuff he can describe easily. He’s watched it grow and change as he ages, only getting stranger and stranger as he develops. He likes to think it’s the universe’s idea of a sick joke, assuming of course that science and probability can create jokes, since fate isn’t real. 

Johnson or whatever nods, his soulmate mark peeking up from where it stretches across his neck and collarbone, a constellation of little flowers that make an astronomy chart on his skin, like an old fashioned one from before 3D navigation was a thing. Simmons doesn’t ask about his mark, since Johnson has already gone on about his girlfriend to no end, talking about how much he loves her and how they met and how he wishes she could be here. He enlisted before they met, when he was on shore leave at her planet. Simmons would think it was sweet if he was a normal human being and not a jealous asshole. 

See, the thing about soulmate tattoos is that some of them are broad. Some people can match with the more common personality types, have lots of potential soulmates. They meet one and settle down, maybe even go for two if they’re that sort of person. They grow up knowing that they’re going to find happiness. They have it worked out for them. But then there’s people like Simmons, who are weird and damaged and strange enough that the odds of them ever meeting their soulmate in the vast, vast stretch of space? Basically insignificant. Tiny. Abysmally small. 

Simmons knows better than to hope.

When Simmons is shipped off to his first outpost, he fails spectacularly in every way. Sure, his test scores had been awful, and sure he had messed up every assessment, but he was at least good in action, right? Nope. The universe and non-existant fate throw a party to laugh at him while he cries, sitting in the bunkroom he shares with three other guys who are all stronger and smarter and faster than he is. Simmons wishes that an alien would just shoot him already.

One of the guys hides his soulmate mark too, but more dramatically than Simmons does, given that this guy had the misfortune to have it plastered across his face. The bandana he wears over the lower half of his face doesn’t cover the swirls of fire and vines that reach up around his temples. Someone asks, one time, and the guy just shakes his head and makes a gesture across his throat, the universal sign for “dead.” Nobody asks after that. 

Probably as a result of that, Simmons never gets asked about his. Mostly the guys find other things to mock him about, like how he’s god awful with everything except a computer. He starts learning how to fix vehicles and other military equipment, which makes him at least not  _ completely _ useless. The word “shotgun” inscribes itself around the rim of the oreo on his arm. He wishes he made more sense, that his mark wasn’t so  _ stupid _ . 

He gets transferred out of that base pretty soon, being replaced by new recruits who probably suck less than he does. Not that that’s hard to do. They send him to some weird base across the arm of the galaxy, so he has to be on a transport ship for a week. The guys there aren’t going the same place he is, just the same direction. There’s even two girls, who he can’t talk to without his heart beating so fast it almost flies out of his chest and smashes itself on the metal walls. Simmons hates the ship only marginally less than his first base.

He tries not hiding his mark there, mostly because it’s  _ really _ warm on the ship on the account of the fact that the pilot gets cold easily and he’s the one with the temperature controls, so wearing his armor always or keeping long sleeved shirts on isn’t super comfortable. It’s the first time since he was old enough to get made fun of that he’s tried this, and the stares at the basically neon mark on his arm are almost enough for him to stop. But he doesn’t. It’s only a week, and who cares? He’ll never see these people again. 

One of the guys, a skinny kid on his way to basic from some exoplanet in the region, asks Simmons about it incessantly, asking if Simmons has met the person, if he thinks they’re a girl or a guy, if he’s gonna marry them right away or date first. Simmons doesn’t answer when he can avoid it, but the kid eventually pries the truth out. No, he hasn’t met them. No, he doesn’t know about the gender. No, he won’t just marry someone on the spot. No, he doesn’t think they’re going to meet. 

The kid thinks this is really sad, so sad he shows Simmons his mark, which is ridiculous in its own way, a combination of fireworks and people holding hands and watercolor fish swimming in the night sky. Simmons plays along, asks the guy if he knows the person, what gender, what he’ll do. The kid sighs, looks out the ship’s window at the night sky.

“I dunno. I think they’re a guy, or at least I hope. Something makes me think they’re out here, in space. A fish in the sea of the universe. I’d like to fall in love with them before we marry, date and kiss and all that. I’ve never kissed anyone, you know,” the kid says, looking wistful.

“Is that why you enlisted?” Simmons asks, curious at the hope this guy has. “To find him?”

“Maybe,” the kid says, shrugging. “I’ll never know them if I don’t try and find them, right?”

And then he kisses Simmons, even though they both know they aren’t each other’s soulmates. It’s nice, and they hang out for the rest of the transport, even though they don’t kiss again or bring it up. At least this way, Simmons thinks, he’s not going to die without ever having felt another’s lips on his. Most people won’t kiss or date or anything if they don’t suspect they could be soulmates, both out of respect for their soulmates and knowledge that it’s probably not going to work out long term with anyone else. It’s unfortunate for people like Simmons, who probably don’t have soulmates anyways. 

When Simmons gets to Blood Gulch, he starts to think that maybe the universe has some form of consciousness. Just enough to have a sense of humor, since it seems to find torturing him so hilarious. He spends his days kissing Sarge’s ass (Sarge’s tattoo is a skull and crossbones, except the skull is made of various sciencey implements and the crossbones are scalpels, dripping with dark blood. Simmons thinks it’s terrifying fitting.) and his nights trying to cry quietly enough that his roommate can’t hear him. The guy wears orange armor, doesn’t talk much, doesn’t work much, and generally annoys Simmons. He sits on his ass all day while Sarge and Simmons actually get shit  _ done _ . His name’s Grif, or something like that. 

Simmons hates him, except when they’re on patrol duty and they’ve been on patrol duty for hours so they’re bored out of their minds. Simmons doesn’t mind Grif then, because they do dumb shit and have dumb conversations that don’t matter and Grif doesn’t ask about his soulmate and Simmons doesn’t ask about Grif’s. They both hide their marks, Simmons’ on his arm and Grif’s on his upper thigh. At least, Simmons thinks so. Grif is usually in sweat and a tank top if he’s out of his armor, so it could be somewhere on his stomach or calves, but the thigh seems to be where Grif’s actively hiding the skin. 

Sarge doesn’t really bring up marks either, but Simmons thinks it’s less out of respect for his subordinate’s boundaries and more because Sarge is too busy focusing on how to kill the blues in their sleep. It’s strange, though, the way the longer Simmons spends here, the less he wants to kill the blues. Sometimes, when he can’t sleep, he thinks about that instead of his soulmate, who probably doesn’t exist and likely never will.

When the rookie arrives, it ruins everything. The blues have some kind of nonsense going on, and they all end up squabbling over flags and stuff. It’s ridiculous, but what  _ actually _ ruins things for Simmons is the fact that not only will Private Donut not avoid the subject of soulmates, he  _ actively tries _ to make it the topic of conversation. Every. Day.

Donut leans back in the chair, his new pink armor on but his helmet off, resting on the table beside his mug of tea. “You know,” he says, running a hand through his short, brown hair. “I bet your soulmate is some really buff dude!”

Simmons glares at donut, ignoring the flush on his face. “Why do you think it’s a guy!?” he asks, totally not too loud and shrill for Donut’s tone. “Why do you assume I’m  _ into _ guys?!”

Donut raises an eyebrow. “You know, Simmons, you should really be more open to new things. There’s a lot of fun stuff out there if you’re not scared to experiment!” He takes a sip of his tea. “I think it’s a guy, that’s all.”

“You haven’t even seen my tattoo,” Simmons grumbles. “And the marks aren’t gender specific all of the time. Maybe a girl  _ or _ a guy could have this personality.”

Donut shrugs. “Maybe! I  _ know _ mine is a guy. I can feel it.” He beams, starting to take off his glove to show Simmons the mark yet  _ again _ . 

“No thanks, Donut, I’m good,” he says, getting up from the table before Donut can show his mark, the comedy and tragedy mask surrounded by a Greek letter and struck through with a caduceus. The ink is violet, bright and pretty. Donut’s soulmate is probably a smart, nice, and capable guy. Simmons resents him for it. 

Simmons spends a lot of those early days, the time when everything is a lot of meaningless squabbling and complaining about the weird blue girlfriend nonsense, thinking about what a mark meant to represent him would look like. The childish part of him wants to pretend that it would look cool, like something out of this world and amazing. Maybe there’d be something to represent his intelligence, his hardworking. But the truth is, Simmons thinks it’d be simpler than that. It’d be a small man, shadowed by so many people taller than him. It’d have a face twisted in fear, and a pond with mosquitos flitting above it to represent stagnancy, because for all of his trying, he knows he’s going nowhere. Maybe the universe will pull something funny and put some literal ass kissing in the mark. 

So, as a logical conclusion of this, Simmons decides he doesn’t  _ want _ to have a soulmate. If he had a soulmate, they’d have to put up with his ugly mark on their arm. They’d have to deal with him, with his shitty personality and shitty face and shitty soul. Simmons shouldn’t make someone put up with him. So, instead of deciding his soulmate simply doesn’t exist, he decides that not only do they not exist, but he doesn’t want them to or feel left out or feel incomplete. Simmons is 100%, totally okay with being alone and unloved forever. It’s fine.

Except when he and Grif go from awkwardly reluctant colleagues to friends, when Grif’s piles of annoying, dirty laundry and his snack-stashing become something he hates in a fond way instead of in the mean way, Simmons feels a horrible ache in his chest. Because he’s never really had friends before, never really been close to people, and it feels like he might have that for the first time in his life and it’s almost terrible. He knows by the sheer absurdity of his mark that he is incompatible with other humans. 

Then Grif is crushed under a tank. Simmons suddenly realizes that, oh, maybe he  _ does _ want a human connection? Maybe he  _ does _ have the capacity to form connections? And so he volunteers his body to save Grif, not that Sarge takes much convincing. The last thing he thinks about as he goes under is that, if someone out there was compatible with him, if they’d do this for him like he is for Grif.

He wakes up and his mark is gone. It’s gone, so far gone. His arm is cold metal that he can move and bend and even feel through, but his mark is gone. 

Grif doesn’t say anything about it. Mostly because he’s really really loopy with pain and doesn’t seem to understand exactly what’s going on. He slips in and out of consciousness for days in a way that makes Simmons not feel bad for hovering over his bedside like a bereaved wife. He can see his mark, his arm, on Grif’s body, sewn onto the shoulder with deft stitches. Sarge could be a surgeon, Simmons thinks, if he would use the appropriate painkillers. Grif seems alright, though, being asleep most of the time anyways.

Grif wakes up for real one morning, and the first thing he does is grab Simmons’ metal arm with his new, pale one. Simmons watches emotions move across Grif’s face.

“You saved me?” Grif asks, like he isn’t sure even though he’s obviously got parts of Simmons’ body literally attached to him.

“Sarge did, technically. But you’ve got my organs and stuff,” he replies, faint smile on his lips. Grif falls back asleep.

After Grif heals up, there’s some nonsense with a purple guy and an AI? And some other silly blue team nonsense that kinda has Simmons wondering what on  _ earth _ the Freelancers have going on. It seems like they bring trouble with them, always. 

Grif and Simmons neatly avoid the topic of Simmons’ soulmark, until one night when they’re both a little tipsy from some beer Grif stole from the blues. Simmons is leaning against his shoulder, since Grif is always warmer than he is and it’s just really nice to rest against another person for once.

“I have your arm,” Grif says, his speech slightly slurred.

“Yeah,” Simmons replies. “You do.”

“Your tattoo is on that arm.” Grif holds up the arm, which is inside a long sleeved black shirt. “D’you want me to keep covering it up?”

Simmons freezes. “Um. Please.” He doesn’t want other people to see it and to put the dots together.

“Wonder if this means your soulmate is mine now,” Grif says casually, like a joke. Simmons relaxes. They’re not going to do anything that resembles a serious conversation, thank god. 

The thing about soulmates is that if your mark is removed, it’s gone. There’s no magic, no fate, nothing. That hypothetical person that would be your perfect match? Still out there, just you don’t have them painted on your skin and for some reason that changes everything. Because if your soulmate is just whoever matches your fucked up personality best, well, then that’s nothing special at all. It’s just common sense. Simmons doesn’t feel broken because soulmates were stupid to begin with. 

So Simmons follows the rest of the gang and goes on funny adventures, stopping Doc/O’Malley from some nonsense in their evil lair and watching the look on Donut’s face when Doc takes off his helmet and it’s so  _ obvious _ . Doc’s face is halfway covered by a cotton-candy mix of colors, of rainbow pastel objects, grenades and lace and other things. It’s a mish-mash of things that are all very  _ Donut _ , but there’s a neat line where it ends, hard and unyielding. Simmons thinks, just for a moment, that maybe fate exists after all. Maybe fate wants his friends to be happy, but not him, because that wouldn’t be as funny as watching him suffer. 

They go to the future, after that, and it’s weird because Simmons is actually pretty sure it isn’t the future at all, but whatever. He struggles and it’s not really significant, even, but they kill like ten thousand Wyomings and it’s kinda awesome but also terrifying and when it’s all over they get transferred. Grif and Simmons, at Rat’s Nest. That time is such a mess that Simmons barely remembers it, barely remembers the nonsense and what happens and how his life feels like it’s falling apart worse than it was in Blood Gulch. He’s almost grateful when they go on another dumb adventure with the Blues, running off with Agent Washington and deleteing the Blues. 

Except when they go to Valhalla, Washington shows back up and shoots Donut and takes Simmons hostage along with Doc. And then Simmons tells Doc his soulmate is dead. And then Simmons leaves Doc behind. He wonders if maybe his soulmate would have a stinking pile of garbage tattooed on their arm, then remembers that he’s decided he doesn’t have a soulmate so it doesn’t matter, actually. 

Nothing matters, not really, until the Meta drags Grif off of a cliff with him and Simmons grabs Grif’s hand and he feels like his chest is going to tear in two, like he’s going to die  _ right now _ if Grif falls. And their hands are slipping, Grif is falling down and Simmons hears himself shouting for Grif but it doesn’t matter because Grif is dead and Simmons might have had feelings about him. Too late. The thing about soulmates is that the whole concept makes it hard to fall in love with people who aren’t yours. But Simmons thinks, right then, that he’d gone and done it anyway. He realizes, as he and Sarge talk about whether or not Grif is dead, that he’s deeply in love with Grif and he didn’t even really know, even though he’d almost said something sappy at Rat’s Nest when he thought they were both dying. 

But Grif calls out and they pull him up and the Blues keep the Freelancer and everything isn’t totally terrible. If Simmons leans against Grif the entire ride home, it’s not important because life or death scenarios at least partially cancel out the need to repress every emotion he has, right? 

That first night back, Simmons lies across Grif’s chest, listening to the steady rise and fall of his breath. They share a room, after all, so it’s not weird if they end up snuggling. That’s just a thing people do when they share a room. Grif is wear sweats and a t-shirt along with the bandages on his wounds, surprisingly few given how close he was to death. Simmons is in a similar state injury-wise, wearing shorts and a tank top. He has no mark to hide, after all. 

Grif’s hand is on the small of Simmons’ back, rubbing small, gentle circles that send a bloom of warmth to Simmons’ chest, make him feel both like he’s going to cry and like nothing will ever be bad again. They both showered after the batshit nonsense the Blues cooked up, and Grif smells like coconut soap.

“What’s up with your shoulder?” Grif asks, and Simmons doesn’t move from his spot, draped over Grif and covered comfortably in blankets fromm the waist down. They’d made a little pillow and blanket nest on Grif’s bunk, crammed themselves in there with Grif lying down on his back and Simmons on top of him, holding on perhaps a little more tightly than is completely normal. 

“Huh?” Simmons replies, very intelligently. 

“Your shoulder,” Grif says, moving his hand to trace the skin that meets Simmons’ metal arm. Simmons shivers; the skin there is sensitive, raw and delicate even this long after the surgery. It’s also a strange color, mottled orange and green and maroon and black. The ring of color is only a centimeter up from the stump, but it’s still visible.

“Oh, that?” Simmons says. “It’s my body trying to get my soulmark to grow. There’s nowhere for the signal to actually  _ do _ anything, so it just puts the color randomly there.” It’s common knowledge that, even if you get a scar on your soulmark, it’ll still grow and change, just with distortions. The way it works for amputees is lesser known, but Simmons had read it online and knew that this was just the way it worked. Grif probably knows too, but Simmons doesn’t say anything and lets Grif trace the edges of the multicolored skin. He’s using his original arm, not the transplanted one, and Simmons glances over to the side, at his old mark. He sees the neon sunset, the violet waves and the shotgun oreo. He sees the linked hands, traced faintly in the edge of the tattoo in blood red. It was the last thing added before he lost the arm, before it saved Grif. 

“Simmons,” Grif says, soft and gentle, a whisper. His hand wraps gently around Simmons’ mechanical bicep. The artificial nerves there ping his brain, reporting the warmth of Grif’s skin, the gentleness of his touch. It isn’t the same as when Grif touches his skin, though. 

So Simmons scoots forward and presses a kiss to Grif’s forehead, too chicken to kiss him on the lips. He settles back down, tucking his face under Grif’s chin and exhaling slowly. Grif doesn’t say anything, just squeezes Simmons in a hug and buries his nose in his hair.

They wake up like that the next morning, and Simmons wonders what Grif’s tattoo loos like, before pretending he never had that thought. Too many emotions are happening as is, no need to complicate things more than necessary. 

They go on a wild goose chase to kill the Director next, which is very important to Epsilon/Alpha/Church and also Carolina, who isn’t a bad guy really, not any more. Wash has settled in, although Simmons gets why Epsilon doesn’t like the guy taking his armor. It would hurt to be replaced like that. 

Simmons never saw Church’s soulmark, and maybe he never had one, not as an A.I., but he knows who matched it. He knows that Tex was Church’s, and that Church was Tex’s. He wonders, for a little while, what Carolina’s mark looks like, until he puts the dots together from the fact that she has it tattooed over, like real tattoo with needles. The black bar is something people do when their soulmate dies. It’s not something done lightly, not if they hope to find someone else. So Simmons doesn’t ask. Washington’s soulmark isn’t a black bar. He sees it for the first time late one night, when they’re on the transport ship back to Blood Gulch, after the Director stuff is over. 

Washington is in the hallway, just like Simmons is. Just like Simmons and that other guy, ages ago, before Blood Gulch. Wash and Simmons stare out the window, at the night sky. Wash doesn’t look like he wants to say anything. Simmons can see most of his soulmark around the straps of his tank top, the teal energy sword and the crown and the desert dunes painted onto his pale skin telling the entire story.

“Sooooooo,” Simmons says, trying to gauge the likelihood of Wash hitting him for asking.

“What?” Wash asks, not unkindly. He sounds tired.

“Tucker, huh?” He stares out at space, letting Wash make whatever expressions he needs to. Actually, given that Washington is a big scary Freelancer, he probably isn’t making any expressions.

“I’m... not sure,” Wash replies, his voice low and quiet. Simmons gives in and looks over at him, but his face is predictably impassive. 

“Uh, I’m pretty sure,” Simmons says. “Who else could match that?”

“No, that’s not-” Wash runs a hand through his hair. “I’m not sure it’s reciprocated.”

Simmons blinks. “Oh.” It’s not unheard of. One person is a match for the other, but the other doesn’t like them. The tattoos usually align, but not always. It’s never a guarantee. When it happens in movies, it’s a tragedy, a sad song, something to cry about. When it happens in real life, it’s awkward and nobody talks about it.

“I mean,” Wash swallows. “Wouldn’t he have said something?”

Simmons shrugs. “Maybe he doesn’t know?” 

“How could he not?” Wash says, and Simmons swallows down a lump in his throat, but he isn’t sure why he’s sad. He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. There’s no way he has a soulmate. It’s impossible. He’s unlovable. Just for a moment, though, he wonders if he’s breaking someone’s heart by telling himself that there’s no match for him.

“I don’t have mine anymore,” Simmons says, instead of saying any of that emotional garbage out loud. “It’s on the arm I gave to Grif.”

Wash nods. “You two are matched though, right?” he asks, so simply and straightforward and matter of fact that it takes Simmons a full second to realize what he said. 

“I-- what?!” Simmons splutters. “No, we’re-- we’re not--”

Wash holds his hands up. “Okay, okay. You don’t need to explain.” He looks over at Simmons, surely noticing how red in the face Simmons is right now. “It’s not my business.”

And that makes Simmons feel bad, because the issue isn’t Wash. The issue is that Simmons isn’t really the standard issue model of this whole “soulmates” thing.

“No, it’s okay,” Simmons says. “It’s just, um... my mark was really strange.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “It doesn’t really make sense. I realized a long time ago that I’m not going to match with anyone.”

Wash stares at him, probably startled more my his honesty than anything. Simmons stares back, scared that if he looks away he’ll realize how very painful what he just said was and he’ll lose his mind. 

“Have you thought about it, though? Since you’ve met Grif?” he asks, carefully. “I don’t mean to intrude, I know it’s not my place, but I’ve seen some pretty strange marks. They don’t always make sense.”

Simmons shrugs, looks back out at the endless night sky. “It is what it is,” he says. “I don’t know if I  _ want _ to think about it.”

The thing about soulmates is that, if you’re soulmates with someone, you can still fuck it up. It isn’t a guarantee that you’ll still be friends, that you’ll fall in love and live happily ever and nothing will ever go bad. It just means you’re compatible as mates. Doesn’t even mean you’ll like each other. Simmons  loves likes Grif. He doesn’t want to lose everything just because he asked some dumb questions about a dumb mark. It’s pointless to want what he knows he’ll never have. No matter how bad he wants it. 

So when the ship crashes on Chorus (oops!) and they build little bases out of the wreckage like they’re roleplaying that everything is normal, and Simmons  _ maybe _ sees a tiny bit of Grif’s mark, he doesn’t let himself process it. The silver gears, the edge of maroon  _ something _ , that could be anyone. He shouldn’t get his hopes up.

After all, wouldn’t he have said something? He has Simmons’ mark, right there. It’s impossible for Grif not to know. And if he knows but hasn’t said, then it must be unrequited, or just not a thing at all. Simmons knows Grif hates them all, anyway. 

When things get weird again (like being in a crash site wasn’t weird enough) and they’re  _ captains _ of  _ squads _ and they’re going to  _ save people _ , Simmons doesn’t have  _ time _ to think about Grif and soulmates and stuff. He definitely doesn’t think about it when he slides into Grif’s bunk as per usual, tucks himself along Grif’s side and falls asleep with the steady rise and fall of Grif’s chest. Grif had started it, this time, after the ship crashed, and Simmons definitely isn’t going to complain. He wonders if Grif was worried about him, when they crashed and when Locus was after them. He wonders if Grif loves him back. He stops wondering because it’s making him want to cry. 

And then they go on a daring secret rescue mission except it isn’t really a rescue mission and they almost die except they don’t. Oh, and Felix lied. Why is Simmons surprised? People are always lying. 

For example: Even though Grif demonstrates care for Simmons, it’s probably fake. Maybe because Grif misses his sister, or is lonely, or horny, or something. But the odds of it being real, being something lasting and solid and true? Zero. Because, as the universe is so fond of reminding Simmons, he’s a giant, hilarious, cosmic joke. He’s part of this funny little group of idiot soldiers, and even in  _ that _ group, he’s in the Reds, which are the funny jokesters without any drama or meaningful character development or anything, right? So he’s useless. Because even in the Reds, even in the funny little joke group, he’s a comic relief character. Donut can throw. Sarge can fix shit. Grif is the secretly intelligent, useful member of team useless. Grif is the secretly kind, deep beneath layers of whatever and lazy. Grif is sweet and warm and--

That’s not the point of this, though. Simmons is just useless, so there’s no way that he’s got a soulmate, just kind of as a rule. The fates, if they exist, like to torment him. They put someone in front of him who matches his stupid, nonsense soulmark (because he  _ had _ thought about it, the sunset over the sea and the oreo and the hands, and it’s obviously Grif) so that he could suffer because if he matched Grif’s mark? Grif would have said so by now. 

He’s pretty sure that Tucker and Wash have cleared their deal up by now. He’s seen Tucker’s mark, in between him getting stabbed and stuff, the tattoo painted over his hip and onto his stomach. A puppet cutting its strings, a cat with yellow eyes and steely fur, a knife wrapped in electrical wires. There’s more, but it’s obviously Wash, and the two of them have been joined at the hip ever since they survived the whole radio jammer Felix-and-Locus-are-evil nonsense. Simmons think they found out, solved the issue, realized they matched and accepted they can be in love and fixed everything. 

Simmons might see the irony. If the two situations were comparable (they aren’t) and Wash thought Tucker didn’t have him on his arm, thought it was unrequited, he was wrong, so Simmons could be too. Except, except Simmons isn’t the same as Wash. Not even close. And even if he knows that his whole idea of him being unlovable was originally based on the fact that no one could match his strange mark, and even if Grif  _ does  _ match it, he still isn’t the type of person who gets a happy ending. He knows that. Washington has  _ worth; _ Simmons doesn’t. That simple. 

He and Grif keep rooming together, even after the teams are in Armonia and there’s definitely room to have their own bedrooms, as Captains and heroes. He also keeps sharing a bed with Grif. 

So one night, when Simmons is lying on top of Grif, with his head buried in the crook of Grif’s neck and Grif’s fingers carding through his hair gently, so gently, and Simmons is almost asleep, he’s not even surprised when Grif asks him about the marks.

“So,” Grif says, sounding like he both really does and really doesn’t want to talk about this. “We should talk about our marks.”

“They’re both yours now,” Simmons says, his voice muffled by Grif’s shoulder. 

“Yeah,” Grif replies, his voice quiet. “The one that was yours, originally.” He doesn’t say it like a question, but he knows. 

Simmons just grumbles into Grif. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he says, even though he knows they need to. 

Grif sighs. “Okay,” he says, and he lets it be because he is endlessly patient with Simmons, so patient and kind that it makes Simmons’ heart hurt with longing. Simmons shuts his eyes, pretends that Grif won’t notice the moisture of a few tears along his neck. Simmons isn’t crying. Definitely not. 

But, before Grif can start another awkward conversation about soulmarks and the fact that Simmons matches with Grif but Grif probably maybe doesn’t match back, they have to go kill the Chairman or at least put his ass in jail. Things get wild and the Freelancers and the Blues do some badass shit, they get on the Staff of Charon and oops! Church dies, again. Except this time for real and even though Simmons knows that Caboose’s mark for Church is one sided and probably platonic, it hurts him deep, deep down to see the way that Caboose’s heart breaks. Except Caboose thinks Church is coming back, so it’s different.

But they get a retirement, finally, and Kimball sets them up with a nice little moon named Iris and it’s great for a while. Donut keeps burning things down but like, who cares? They’re safe (for now) and nothing bad is happening (for now) and he and Grif are sharing a bedroom again (for now). It’s good. 

Simmons likes to go outside of the base, out onto a bluff that overlooks the jungle (with dinosaurs to boot). It looks gorgeous at sunset, especially when the planet is aligned just right so that he can see the planet’s sunset, too. It’s peaceful and pretty in a way that Blood Gulch or Valhalla or Chorus or even Earth could never compare to. He also goes there to be alone, except it doesn’t really work because people keep finding him there. Mostly Grif. 

Grif hasn’t asked about the soulmate thing again, but whenever he sidles up beside Simmons on the little ridge Simmons likes to relax on, Simmons is always sure that he’s going to. He knows, knows without a doubt that Grif wonders, wants to know what Simmons’ deal is, why he’s so afraid of the topic. He probably also wants to address the marks themselves, to see if his suspicions, whatever they are, if they’re true. Simmons knows he’s endlessly curious himself, to see if maybe, just maybe, his life is painted on Grif’s thigh, but he doesn’t want to ask because he doesn’t want to get his hopes up just to have them shot down. And for him to ask, he’d have to get his hopes up, because if he knows the answer, why would he ask?

Except Grif is wearing shorts today, not short enough to show much of the mark, but Simmons still catches a glimpse of the silver gears he knows runs along the bottom of the mark, and seeing it still takes his breath away. Gives him that painful spark of hope, in some dead, unused part of his heart. He doesn’t want to see that, doesn’t want to know.

Grif takes his hand, and Simmons doesn’t protest because no matter what the truth is, he doesn’t want to lose what he as with Grif. He still loves him.

And that’s why it hurts so badly when they get the distress call and Grif  _ won’t come with them. _ When he  _ quits _ . When he quits Simmons. 

Simmons can feel it like a knife to his heart, and he can  _ feel _ the way his body tries to update his mark, feels the painful drain and catch as the hormones meant to trigger the colors in his arm get stuck along the stump where it meets his prosthetic. He feels like his heart is breaking, splitting into tiny pieces. It hurts him in a way that nothing has ever hurt before, not knowing that he was unlovable, not dropping Grif off the cliff, not anything. Because this time he knows for certain. He has proof. Grif doesn’t love him back, or if he did, he doesn’t anymore.

So maybe that’s why Simmons falls into Temple’s trap. He sees the blacked out mark on Temple’s shoulder, knows. Knows the pain of losing, even though Grif isn’t dead. He hates the way Jean’s mark isn’t anything to do with any of the other Blues and Reds, hates the way there isn’t a Grif counterpart, but secretly he’s glad. He doesn’t think too hard about anything, but of course, that just lands him in a steaming hot pot of trouble, because whoops, these are the bad guys! And of course, Simmons is an idiot and fell for their tricks. 

When Grif shows back up, everything feels right again, just for a moment. Even though they fight and argue and then literally fight, saving the planet or something, it’s still okay because Grif is here, by his side, and he isn’t going to be alone. He watched Wash get shot, watches Tucker’s pain, and he knows how it hurts even though the same thing exactly hasn’t happened to Grif. So he gets it. When things settle down, and Tucker is still mopey and sad, he gets it. 

“It’ll be okay,” Simmons says. “He’s going to make it.” He doesn’t know how comforting his words are to Tucker, in the waiting room of the hospital on Chorus. Grey is changing Wash’s bandages, doesn’t want them crowding her. 

Tucker shakes his head. “I know, I just miss him.” He says it so plainly, so easily. “I love him.”

“I know,” Simmons says. “And no matter what happens, you still will.”

Tucker looks up at him like he’s gone crazy. “What’s gotten into you, man? You’re not usually the honesty type.”

Simmons shrugs. “I don’t know.” Tucker seems to accept that, seems to understand.

But Simmons does know. He almost lost Grif, both physically on that cliff ages ago and emotionally on Iris. And now that they’re together again (except for Wash! oops!) it’s something he can feel, waiting around any corner to lash out and bite him, take his Grif away and kill his heart from the inside out. But even if Grif doesn’t ever love him back, even if Simmons dies alone and afraid and nobody comes to help him, he’ll still love Grif. Even if Grif’s corpse is rotting in the corner of an abandoned field, bloated and pale and swarming with flies, Simmons will still love him. 

The thing about soulmates, is that they’re the person your mind and body are best suited to love. And it hurts, it hurts so bad to not know if you’re truly going to be together, since magic isn’t real and fate doesn’t exist. 

Grif has a different opinion on soulmates than Simmons does. He knows this, because Grif told him so, in the shadowed light of their bunk on Chorus. He brings it up because Simmons told him about Tucker and Wash, about the soulmarks. They matched so perfectly it was uncanny.

“Y’know,” Grif says, almost whispering. It’s late, almost two in the morning. “I don’t buy the whole ‘chemical soulmarks’ nonsense.”

Simmons whips his head around to look at him. “You don’t believe what scientists have proven?”

Grif snorts. “Dude, have you actually  _ read _ any of those papers? It’s a hypothesis. The evidence is really weak, actually. It’s only supported because people don’t like to believe that magic or destiny or whatever is real.” Simmons has read those papers, extensively. No matter how weak the evidence, it’s better than pretending fate exists and also cares about them.

“So it’s magic. That makes  _ so _ much more sense,” Simmons says, rolling his eyes. “Do you think the universe just makes you a perfect person? Just cooks them up and dumps them on your lap?”

Grif sighs. “Simmons, we both know it isn’t that simple.” He pauses, and Simmons glances at him, sees the orange glow of the emergency lights that outline their door reflecting off him patchwork face. 

“Have you ever seen my mark?” Grif asks, playing with the bedspread (they’re sitting on Grif’s bunk, not cuddling but their thighs are touching) like he’s nervous. “Like, more than just a tiny bit of it.

Simmons shakes his head. Grif nods, acknowledging. He doesn’t seem satisfied though.

“Do you  _ want _ to?” he asks, voice careful and quiet. Simmons hates the way that, if he listens carefully, he might think that Grif is  _ scared _ to ask.

“I--” Simmons swallows. “I don’t know,” he replies, even though his entire body is burning to see it, to finally know. The tiny, stupid part of him that still has hope imagines he’d see himself there, but the rest of him feels like it’s circling down a drain. This is it. This is where it ends. 

Grif swings his legs where they dangle over the side of the bunk. “You’ve never told me why this freaks you out so bad,” he says, like he and Simmons are particularly known for their emotional openness (they’re not).

“It’s complicated,” Simmons replies, unhelpfully. 

Grif sighs. “Yeah, I kinda figured.” He bites at his lip. “Can I show you my mark?”

Simmons just turns to look at him, and honestly he doesn’t know what his face must look like, but apparently it’s pretty pathetic because Grif reaches up to stroke his cheek, gently, soothingly. Simmons breathes out, slow and even and terrified. 

“Okay,” he says, and his voice is a ghost in the room, tiny and shy and wavering. “Okay.” His voice is firmer on the repeat. 

Grif reaches down, grips the edge of his shorts, starts to pull the hem of the shiny grey fabric up, but Simmons just watches his hand, the beautiful tanned skin of Grif’s original arm. The dark hair that grows along his forearm is as familiar to Simmons now as Grif’s orange armor, where once he’d never dreamed he’d even touch his colleague, where once he’d thought he’d never become his friend. And now they’re doing this. 

Simmons sees the gears first, the silver gears he’s already seen. They’re bordered by maroon fabric that somehow manages to convey the idea of velvet, even in a tattoo. The fabric stretches upward, fading to the pixelated screen of an old-fashioned computer. The words on the screen are familiar. “Do you even wonder why we’re here?” they ask, in the font of the messages their helmets give. The edge of the screen breaks away into the familiar cliff sides from Blood Gulch, colored the same as Grif’s skin. Winding lines of code, of script in other languages and the double helix of DNA make smoke curling throughout the sky. At the very top, the same linked hands from Simmons’ tattoo, only in Grif’s orange. 

Simmons doesn’t know what to do, because he’d made it very clear to himself that he couldn’t be allowed to hope, couldn’t be allowed to want this, so it’s only natural that he didn’t prepare at all for the possibility that Grif was, in fact, his soulmate. That they matched. His brain tries half-heartedly to justify, to point out that it  _ could _ be him, but is it really? But Simmons knows. He knows, and he doesn’t know what to do except to look up at Grif.

Grif’s eyes are shiny and wide and Simmons doesn’t know why, but he leans in and presses his lips to Grif’s. Grif’s lips are smooth and soft, and Simmons’ own are beyond chapped, but it’s still nice. Simmons hasn’t kissed very many people, but this short, chaste kiss with Grif is still one of the best. He pulls away, because a soft, light kiss is what he was going for (he wasn’t really planning this, but still), but Grif grabs his face and basically smashes their lips together again. It’s like Grif forgot how to breathe when Simmons kissed him, and now he’s a drowning man sucking in air to save his life. He presses kisses to Simmons’ lips, to the corner of his mouth, to his flesh cheek and his metal one. He kisses Simmons’ forehead, warm and soft and gentle, like Simmons had kissed him so many nights ago. 

“I love you,” Simmons breathes, pressing his forehead to Grif’s. “I love you.”

“Thank goodness,” Grif whispers, and Simmons takes a second to realize what he said before he jerks back. 

“What?! What do you mean, ‘thank goodness?’” Simmons shakes his head. “You’re supposed to say ‘I love you too,’ jackass!”

Grif laughs, loud and happy and warm. “I love you too, jackass,” he giggles, giving Simmons another kiss on the cheek. 

“You know what I mean,” Simmons says, grumbling even though he’s light with joy, so light he could float right off this bed like he’s multicolored steam and drift around in the vents. 

Grif rolls his eyes. “I mean, you made it hard to tell. You  _ obviously _ had to know your mark was about me, right? You never acknowledged it, so I wasn’t sure.” His face is happy, but the way his voice gets a tiny bit quieter gives away his worry.

“I thought...” Simmons sighs. “I thought you would have said something, you know. If I was your match. You knew my tattoo was about you, so...” 

Grif blinks. “You thought mine wasn’t you? Like, that it was someone else?”

Simmons nods, biting his lip and ignoring the tiny bubble of doubt that rises up in his chest. 

Grif shakes his head. “Dude, we’re awful at this. God, we’re so stupid,” he says, laughing. “Of course it’s you. It couldn’t have been anyone else.”

And that’s enough for Simmons, enough for him to push the doubt out of his mind. He leans forward and wraps his arms around Grif, pulls him close and buries his head in Grif’s neck, just breathing there. Grif freezes for a moment before moving his hands to rest on Simmons’ back.

“Uh.. you okay?” he asks, rubbing slow circles into his skin.

“Yeah,” Simmons sniffles, definitely not crying. “I’m really happy.”

Grif hugs Simmons tightly. “Me too. I love you,” he says, certain and sweet. 

“I love you too,” Simmons says back, his voice muffled in Grif’s shirt. Grif squeezes him like he’s worried he’s going to float away. 

The thing about soulmates is, that even if Simmons is weird and strange, there’s other people who are like that in the universe. There is one man, a Hawaiian soldier who wears orange armor, who pretends to be lazy and stupid when he’s really lazy and smart. And the thing about Grif is that Simmons loves him, and Grif loves Simmons back. And honestly, that’s all that really matters. 

  
  
  



End file.
